random snap : triple hachi drift from '07 msc

**happy 86th post!!**

My newest shell I keep calling a Trueno was still technically a Levin until today ! Even though I have the Trueno bonnet and flared wings fitted, it still had the factory Levin headlamp bracket supports spot welded in place ,

I drilled out the five factory spot welds and offered up the Trueno headlamp bracket,all good, there's even a factory hole behind the Levin bracket to bolt the Trueno headlamp in place  (which I'll do again as I need to spray behind the drilled off brackets) which leads me to believe they are all Trueno's underneath lolz!!

  

Labour of love...

got a few bits done tonight in the garage

played around with the rear coilover's , a few mod's need to be done like grind down the top mount washer(not in picture) so that it fits into the top mount tube
and some trimming around the over-fender so moar low is possible.

I sprayed the bonnet hinges and fitted the fiberglass bonnet with  fresh stainless hex head bolts

At home Finally...

Well today I got my Trueno to the new garage , Ive really been looking forward to this, and I'm  mega excited about getting lots of work done on it now,

first off I played around with some of my Wats and did some offset testing

thats a 185/60 on a 9j -19 , its need's either a 50 or 55 profile stretched on and yea lots MOAR LOW

I'm gona go hard at it this week, hopefully I'll get the Trueno front end together and on it and fit all the uprated rear suspension to the rear axle

Racing Service Watanabe....

official Ad , how fucking cool is this,

obviously bad quality vid being sooo old and retro, but hey....


So who can guess the car?????????

Garage Hachi in 3D !

After looking at a few garages to properly set up shop I've finally found a nice place for me to call home.
Its a fair size and in good condition! So last Saturday and Sunday we started to clean up the place.

Pics from early Saturday

Plenty of space for us and potential GH customer cars..

Big thanks to Dave for all the sweeping and tidying up and to Sarah for her painting skillz!!!

Thankfully Dave had the use of a reliable Outback wagon for the weekend , so we got moving up some parts.

It's starting to take shape so after some more security upgrades this weekend the garage will be ready for the Trueno.

more stuff in the post!

Two packets of long awaited parts have arrive from around the globe! 


Firstly, from my friends in RHDJapan, we have some genuine Rays sticker repair kits for TE37's, black & white for my bronze set, and blue and white for Kevs set.. I'm so chuffed with these I didn't think I would ever find them, my wheels are going to be like new when I put them on! BIG thanks again to RHD for getting these for me :)

Secondly, from Australia, we have two beefy T6 6061 aluminium 40mm RCA's by AJPS. I chose these as they were similar in price to T3 but were 40mm thick rather than 30mm for better correction if I go very low, and also its nice to support all of the independent tuners making aftermarket AE86 parts! Also anodized black is a big plus for me lol. 

Also supplied by AJPS were two sets of polyurethane steering rack mount bushings and they will eventually go into my Trueno and one of Kevs '86s. They should really improve the steering feedback on our manual racks so that is one mod I am quite looking forward to. Results will be posted.

This weekend might see the start of assembling the new coilovers for my Trueno so stay tuned!

heater hose fix

blood splatter?

The heater feed hose was leaking in my Trueno for the past couple of weeks, what started out as a small drip down the block just got worse until most of the block and a lot of the bay was a horrible orange rusty colour, and I was having to top up the radiator every morning before driving to work.

top left hose

The coolant was not very clean and the header bottle needed serious washing out, so I suspect that for a period somewhere in its life the engine had only water in it, so it was losing out on the anti-corrosion properties of the coolant/antifreeze. I wonder what the inside of the water galleries are like!? I have flushed it out and refilled it with a mix and will do it again in a couple of weeks and see if I can get most of the muck out of the system, though a fresh radiator is now in mind for the future.

One new hose and two new clips were ordered direct from Toyota and came in the post a couple of days later for less than €30.  Access to the hose is much easier when you unbolt the vacuum sensor from the bulkhead, otherwise its a simple job. The hose that I took out was in very bad condition, with many snakebite holes after appearing. I suppose after 23yrs the rubber starts to perish a little lol :)

Anyway I checked the other heater hoses, they seem ok for now, but at least they are cheap for replacements, and I think I will get a set of those nice Samco hoses that Kev got (but in black) when I put in a new radiator someday.

job done.

I gave the engine bay a quick and careful powerwash afterwards but that cooling system silt or whatever it is is thoroughly baked onto the block. Guess it will have to come out to be cleaned and painted next year!
I'm still waiting on some 40mm RCA's to arrive in the post which is holding up the coilover install otherwise my '86 is going great...